One Bag for One Week in Tokyo
I am fascinated and slightly obsessed with lightness and, in its extreme form, ultra-lightness. Though I’m no backpacker and prefer the comfort of a stiff Marriott bed, I find myself browsing blogs and Reddit posts of ultra-light fanatics folding the air itself to ensure their packs are as light and compact as possible. The extremity and passion with which these people post about grams and ounces causes my dopamine-deprived brain delight.
Thanks to the algorithmic rabbit hole, I discovered the ultralight enthusiast's distant cousin, r/OneBag. In contrast to normal, once-a-year travelers, r/onebag profess a profound freedom in carrying only one bag, as the name suggests, on a trip, in spite of the duration or destination. Southeast Asia for 6 months? One bag. Tucson, Arizona, for three days? One bag.
But why one bag?
Freedom for most and cost for some.
The freedom achieved by bringing one bag is profound for travelers. There’s less to worry about, less to carry, less to pack. Most one-baggers are converted to one-bagging due to bad experiences abroad, where they felt additional baggage impeded them in some way. Maybe it was the hassle of carrying luggage up multiple flights of Japanese subway stairs or discovering a checked bag never made it on the flight to Peru.
The second most common reason is cost. For the budget-minded folks, the cost implication is apparent. One bag that meets personal or carry-on requirements means skipping the added fees of checking luggage. Or it’s limiting how many cheap souvenirs one can buy abroad.
The caveat to this lighter and freer path is laundry. A standard traveler may pack enough to avoid laundry, which means multiple outfits and thus greater quantities of luggage. Instead of avoiding laundry, one-baggers will bake it into their trip, finding hotels with laundry machines, nearby laundromats, assortments of laundry gadgets like travel-sized laundry lines, or resort to handwashing in a sink.
To make the laundry load lighter, or just avoid it entirely, the serious and/or wealthiest of travelers will bring along their merino wool clothes. A fabric that takes longer to develop stink, if it even does, and dries in less time than cotton. At a minimum, the outfit will include a merino wool t-shirt, but the list may stretch to underwear, socks, shorts, or pants. The downside being that a single merino wool t-shirt often costs a minimum of $50, and higher quality options can quickly reach $100+.
If a one-bagger has decided to go down the rabbit hole of outfitting themselves in merino wool clothing, the next responsible decision is figuring out what bag to bring. Unlike ultra-light followers, where weight is a guiding requirement, one bag could mean many things to many people. Maybe it’s an extra-large suitcase equipped with a frame and more straps than zippers. Or maybe the traveler knows that their new merino wool clothing won’t need to be washed and decides to go for a hiking backpack made with materials that can’t be human-made. The options are limitless, and most posts scrutinize and judiciously analyze the wide array of luggage options available.
Looking deeper, you’ll find the most fascinating and highest interaction posts are the users who pack in 30L or less.
For context, 30L is a large backpack. The 30L bag is often the starting point for those who have found one-bagging to be appealing and are on the doorstep to extremes.
The most popular posts fit their gear in 20L or less. Post titles are something similar to “Indefinite International Travel with a Children’s Backpack”.
While most people play flag football, these people are in the NFL.
At this level of one-bagging, we were back into the realm of extreme minimalism and ultralight-ism. Sentences are again filled with grams, ounces, and liters. Scrutiny is applied to every item. The people who have chosen to live this way have a standard outfit that consists of one or two merino wool shirts, one pair of pants, one pair of shoes (often hideous looking), one pair of shorts that function as swim trunks, a couple pairs of undies, two pairs of socks, and a puffy jacket that fits into the palm of a hand.
The elite's concerns for gear are no longer style, color, or brand. But instead, it’s weight, fabric type, and if the item is multifunctional. It’s nothing to buy a custom-made, $750 puffer jacket if it means it’s a wee bit lighter and warmer than their previous one.
All this to say is that I was hooked, and with a last-minute 8-day trip to Japan, I took the dive. This is what I brought:
a strikethrough indicates I won't be bringing it next time.
(1) Almond Oak Expandable Travel Backpack 25L + 5L (great bag, but got hot on the back)
(2) Cotton t-shirts (want to get merino wool next time)
(2) Cotton long-sleeve t-shirts
(1) Pair of Compression socks
(4) Pairs of darn tough socks (will bring two next time)
(4) Pairs of underwear
(1) Pair of grey hiking pants
(1) Pair of green chino pants
(1) Patagonia Puffer Coat:
(1) Pair of shorts:
(1) Pair of GoRuck Mackall shoes
(1) Battery bank
(1) Kindle
(1) Notebook
(3) Pens
(1) Ziplock bag of basic toiletries
(1) Charger block and cable
(1) Pair of AirPods
(1) Pair of wired ear buds
(1) Case of silicon earplugs
(1) iPhone 14 Pro